The Power of Focus and A Sustainable Comparative Advantage

The concepts of focus and diversification are diametrically opposed, but both are crucial concepts in finance.  As investors, we are wise to diversify, to not put all of our eggs in one basket.  As one extreme, employees of Enron who also invested their personal assets in the fast rising company lost both their wealth and their income when the firm collapsed.

For companies (and for individuals considering career options), the opposite is true, and much research has found that those companies that focus on their core competencies are those that prosper.  Companies, like people, have distinct advantages at certain things - but not at everything.  Effective strategic leadership requires defining and honing a sustainable comparative (competitive) advantage.  Let's consider that phrase more fully:

• Comparative (competitive) Advantage means that you can deliver a service or product more effectively, or with higher quality or more inexpensively than your competition.  Now whether you focus on quality or cost is another major decision that we leave for later discussion, but the choice comes down to knowing your marketplace, to understanding customer wants and needs. But as my colleague Joe Rizzi points out, make sure your advantage is comparative: "Having smart people doesn’t mean anything if all your competitors have smart people as well."

• Sustainable - means you will continue to enjoy this advantage for at least the next several years.  This is why Warren Buffett and other great investors talk of finding companies with moats protecting them from competition.  The moat may be in the form of a superior product that cannot be duplicated -  perhaps due to technological knowledge, but more likely due to patents.  It could be from regulatory advantages or political alliances. It could also be from brand capital - the reputation of your firm in the marketplace.  A moat could also exist because of natural barriers to entry like regulation or other legal structures or because the business requires intense capital or other requirements, not easily copied.  There are many more ways to build a 'moat' but the concept is the same, find a way to stay ahead of the competition - a way that is not easily duplicated.

Note that managements can have moats built around themselves as well - a highly undesirable characteristic.  Moreover, management can be so enamored with the size of their empire that they forget the need to focus.  When this happens, external forces - takeovers or activists - step in to correct the situation.  Indeed, the need to focus, to find the sustainable competitive advantage is at the heart of much recent activist activity.  See Joe's recent post discussing Yahoo, Darden, Ebay, Hewlett Packard and DuPont (Royalists Vs. Governistas).  

You can think of sustainable comparative advantage as overlapping circles.  One circle contains the set of all things a company is good at - another partially overlapping circle contains the set of things the market will reward.  The intersection of these circles is the sweet spot where businesses (and people) can prosper.  For businesses and individuals with a sustainable competitive advantage, the sweet spot exists for a longer period of time, but even here the circles are continually moving as technology, consumer tastes, regulation, political climates and other catalysts shift the circles.  It is essential to stay ahead of the shifts.  

Note: for individuals considering career choice, I'd add a third circle consisting of things you enjoy doing.  If you find the intersection of those three circles in your life you are indeed fortunate, doing something you like, that you are good at, that the market values. 

All the best,

Ralph